Pellar indicted for mail fraud related to Columbia State

According to news reports, yesterday (4/17/03), Ronald Pellar was indicted by a federal grand jury for mail fraud related to his operation of Columbia State University.

See http://www2.ocregister.com/ocrweb/ocr/article.do?id=35368&section=LOCAL&subsection=CRIME_COURTS&year=2003&month=4&day=18

and

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-diplomas18apr18,1,4111551.story (free registration required)

 

Are the FBI back in business?

 

Just think of how many DL PhDs Pellar can complete if he serves most of his 45 year prison term.

 

Great news. Thanks for reporting it, Jason. While the FBI has probably been involved, this one was very largely a postal inspector investigation, I believe. I was told 2 1/2 years ago by the FBI that one reason it was taking so long was that there were some major money laundering aspects to the case, which required a bunch of international cooperation.

I do hope it goes to trial. That's one I'll attend with bells on. Pellar did more serious harrassing and damage to me than any other mill operator ever.

 

Here's the Associated Press story. If correct, the indictment really got it wrong. Pellar's Columbia State first appeared in 1990, not 1996. So if they have found $10 million just for two years, it may well be that ABC's figure of over $70 million for its entire run of nearly ten years is correct.

 

Indictment

What was the basis for his arrest? Did he fail to deliver something that he promised? Please clarify.

 

Re: Indictment

He is a fraudster. He was selling bogus college diplomas. He committed several crimes.

 

Pellar is a malicious and destructive criminal. I saw this guy on 20/20 being interviewed, every sentence he spoke was demeaning knowledge, education and even civilization in general. He needs to rot in jail for the rest of his life.

 

Re: Indictment

He had already been convicted for a fraudulent scheme involving an earlier degree mill. The fraud apparently used over 40 aliases and also liked to dabble with jury tampering.

 

Paulie: What was the basis for his arrest? Did he fail to deliver something that he promised? Please clarify.

John: I haven't seen the indictment, but I have read the very long investigative report that the postal inspectors used to apply for (and get) the search warrant 4 or 5 years ago, when they raided the secret warehouse in San Clemente.

I don't have a copy where I am now, but from memory:

1. False accreditation claim.
2. False depiction of university: the picture in the catalog was an unrelated stately home.
3. Falsely stated faculty; there were no faculty at all.
4. Falsely-stated affiliation with Jonas Salk and with several Nobel laureates.
5. Claimed recognized accreditation.
6. Claimed widespread acceptance of degree, using testimonials from people who were pictures cut from magazines.
7. False claim (in a book he self-published) that his school had been independently chosen as the best university in America.
8. Awarded degrees to dogs, cats, birds (a Doctor of Avionics) and others, who presumably had not done work to earn them.
9. Actual and only premises was a windowless warehouse in San Clemente (not too far from the Nixon museum). Most of the employees were undocumented aliens, earning below minimum wage, with no Workers Comp insurance, in horrendous working conditions.

On a personal front, Pellar

1. Prepared a 24-page viciously anti-semitic anti-African-American diatribe, on "my" letterhead, and faxed it over and over, hundreds of times, to the various newspapers and magazines where I was advertising my book, with a cover letter on "my" stationery thanking them profusely for refusing to accept ads from n******, K****, and other subhumans. Apart from the content, the magazines were outraged that he was tying up their fax machines for hours at a time.

2. Prepared literature for a non-existent travel agent school, and used it to rent my mailing list from the compoany that was then handling list rental, claiming he was doing a mailing for his travel agent school. He sent a thick mailing piece to the 30,000+ names on on U.S. Department of Education stationery, alerting people to the fact that I was a wanted criminal publishing an illegal book, urging them to return it for a refund, and buy, instead, his "wonderful" book. (About a dozen actually did.)

3. Wrote a large number of letters, on various letterheads, to every regionally accredited school in my book, from many different names, stating that the writer was just about to enroll in their school, but then they talked to me, and I persuaded them to enroll instead in one of the many schools that I own and operate.

I never sued him, because the legal research we did suggested that virtually all of his very great assets had been transported to the Grand Caymans, which has financial security laws tougher than Switzerland. My excellent lawyer estimated that it would cost at least $50,000 to prepare for a trial, and at least $100,000 more to conduct it, with, it seemed, little or no chance of ever getting a penny back.

I am watching with interest to see if the feds have been or might be able to recover any of the $70 million + that he took in.

 

RE: John Bear's recital of Mr. Pellar's actions against him personally.

Michael: Geez, Mr. Pellar certainly could have used a hobby. He clearly had a lot of excess time and energy.

Astonishing the lengths some people will go to.

Regards,

Michael Lloyd
Mill Creek, Washington USA

 

Don't forget the guy scammed millions of dollars. I would guess that he directed his employees to do most of that stuff while he spent most of his time trying to figure out how to spend and hide 10 million dollars a year.

 

Do we know what brought Pellar back to the US? I thought his yacht off the coast of Mexico was somewhere where he couldn't be extradited.

 

He was arrested crossing the border back into the US. We don't know why he took the risk; perhaps he didn't appreciate that his lovely phizz was known to many border guards.

Mexico, incidentally, refused to cooperate with US authorities in retaliation for the many Mexican citizens held in US prisons on what the Mexican's believe are very minor infractions.

 

Who says the Mexican government doesn't have a sense of humor? They also frequently refuse to cooperate with us in retaliation for the many Mexican citizens who are deported back to Mexico in lieu of spending their full prison terms in U.S. prisons.

Can't win for losing.

 

John Bear wrote:

> He was arrested crossing the border back into the US.

When?

And where has he been since his arrest? In jail serving an unrelated sentence? In jail awaiting trial because he was denied bail? Out on bail?

 

Life for fraud?

If you (Bill Huffman) think this guy deserves to go to jail for the rest of his life because of fraud there is something seriously wrong with you.

There is simply nothing that justifies such a long prison term except the rape of children or murder.

 

Re: Life for fraud?

Then there is something wrong with me, too. Pellar committed a fraud perpetrated on thousands. Not just the people that bought the degrees, but all of the people who believed they were real. As my recent research suggests, that fraud has a lot of life still in it.

 

Re: Life for fraud?

Perhaps you would be right if he was 20. However, he's not and he'll be spending the rest of his destructive life rotting in jail where he belongs.

However, if you would like to speculate further on what is "seriously wrong" with me then please be my guest, digit, I'm all ears.

 

Mark: He was arrested crossing the border back into the US.
When? And where has he been since his arrest? In jail serving an unrelated sentence? In jail awaiting trial because he was denied bail? Out on bail?

About 2 years ago.

He had been on trial for his fake "PermaDerm Institute," in which, for about $2,000, you would learn to apply permanent makeup, and make $5,000 a week. The 'course' consisted of sitting in a large hall with many others, practicing with ball point pens on cantaloupes. It was a 2-day course, and the 'good' stuff was promised for the 2nd day, and he simply didn't show up. City after city.

When the case went to the jury, he walked away. Then the non-sequestered jurors started getting life threats by phone, if they voted guilty. There had already been demonstrated witness tampering during the trial. So in addition to the millions he took under false pretenses, we had witness tampering, jury threatening, and escape.

This is not a man with a non-violent past. He earlier served seven years in prison for hiring a hit man to kill a rival hypnotist. And Lana Turner (he was her 7th and last husband) claimed he regularly beat her, as well as stealing and selling her jewelry.

Just an all around nice guy.